An estimated 94% of people in the U.S. have been infected with the COVID-19 virus at least once, according to according to a new paper from researchers at Harvard’s School of Public Health.
The big reason for the surprising surge? The omicron variant’s record-shattering case rates early this year and middling booster rates that fell short of what experts had hoped to see.
While that’s far from good news, there is a silver lining: As of early November, the percentage of people with some protection from new infections and severe disease is “substantially higher than in December 2021,” according to the authors.
